BMW 1-Series Forum (F20) 135i - 1Addicts.com > Second Generation 1 Series Forum > 2012 BMW 1-Series Sporthatch (F20) Discussion > Dealer royally screwed spark plug change!
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      10-19-2021, 06:09 AM   #1
MrM135i
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Dealer royally screwed spark plug change!

Last week I had my 70k service which included spark plugs. Drove out of the dealer's driveway and instantly got misfiring and drivetrain error. Went straight back in and they took 1.5 hours to "change 2 plugs, clear errors and confirm all 6 were ok". Drove 2 miles home ok, but next day on a short trip around town I had the same misfires and drivetrain error. Dealers had car for another day and replaced a 3rd spark plug, reset errors, confirmed all plugs ok and road tested. All ok for a couple of days, but then I drove about 60 miles in the weekend and it got progressively rougher until misfires and drivetrain error returned 😡

Dealer say they have a senior guy on it and they are convinced that he "knows what he's doing" and didn't mess anything up. They suggest it may be a "bad batch" of plugs, even tho apparently my car is the only one suffering, so I just happen to have *all* the bad plugs in my car - yeah right!!

So I had a quick peek myself and noticed that although plugs seem torqued correctly, several are leaking quite badly. This *should* be obvious to a mechanic (really obvious burnt petrol smell as you pull the coil out and the end of the coil is sooty), but it seems that dealer "mechanics" are not experienced as mechanics, they just read codes and do what the book suggests as a solution and all is considered ok if no new codes (!)

I didn't have too much time to investigate before they came to collect it again, but my guess is that threads are too dirty/tight so they're not screwed in fully even tho up to torque and/or maybe dealer didn't clean seats before installing new plugs and crap on the seat is preventing a good seal.

Other thing I noticed is plugs are gapped at .63, which seems wide compared to what I see discussed on here. I don't have a manual etc to check tho...

I have two questions here really:
1. Is this sort of experience "normal" for a main dealer? Until recently I always did my own service and this honestly just looks like very sloppy/incompetent work to me. Is this what we should expect from BMW franchisees?
2. 0.63 gaps on stock M135i - bosch zr5tpps plugs. Does that sound right??
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      10-19-2021, 11:02 AM   #2
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I had my plugs replaced at a dealer service all right. No issues. But I was standing next to the mechanic and watching him work. In my experience, this looks like a key point even though I lack any expert knowledge (well, even with that said, the competence of the mechanics at the dealer service I use looks degenerating ). Another official service I had to use to replace my steering rack (for free, BMW recognized the issue ) as it was the closest and I couldn't drive, fucked up on several occasions (DSC initialization, wheel alignment and my headlights washing doesn't work any more! ) and no, I wasn't looking after them.

Regarding plug gap - should they even alter that? I guess mine were installed right out of the box, I don't remember any complicacies.
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      10-20-2021, 06:50 AM   #3
MrM135i
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Update on "drivetrain" misfire issue

Got my car back again after they changed all 6 plugs because every one was faulty. They are still blaming issues on a "faulty batch" of plugs, even tho they assure me that my car is the only one that has had issues... 6 faulty out of 6 is just "very bad luck" and they are convinced that all will be OK now. Anything further will apparently "not be due to faulty plugs, but something else in my car", so if I bring it back again, they will be looking at changing out various other components. Even if the statistics were believable this doesn't explain leakage past the plugs 😢

The photo shows a comparison of 4 of my coils - the 2 burnt looking ones (one more obvious than the other) had very obvious leaks past the spark plug compression washer, so I would imagine that's why they look burnt, but apparently I don't know what I'm talking about in that regard either
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      10-23-2021, 07:57 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by No one View Post
Another official service I had to use to replace my steering rack (for free, BMW recognized the issue ) as it was the closest and I couldn't drive, fucked up on several occasions (DSC initialization, wheel alignment and my headlights washing doesn't work any more! ) and no, I wasn't looking after them.
Well, I must correct myself. I condemned "another official service" for my headlight washing failure incorrectly. Today I was going to replace my summer washer fluid with a winter one and had to dump it to free the tank. So, after countless washing actions (I was just lucky to have the headlights on already!) the headlight washing started to work!!! Again, after at least a year of "suspension", I guess. (They must have failed to break it, after all. ) And no, there is no way I could've just overlooked it before due to "reasonably limited application" (headlights on, blocking time, speed threshold, number of washing operations for headlight cleaning): I use the headlight washing function very seldom, invoking/suspending it manually in fact (this is why I started suspecting many months after the steering rack replacement, so I couldn't just return to the service again) and I did make absolutely sure it really didn't work after I noticed it "just" didn't. I guess the washers were just stuck and now I've released them.
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